


The Dancer With No Feet

by particulant



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 21:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19732336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/particulant/pseuds/particulant
Summary: Short narrative depicting an elderly man who thinks far too much about the simple things.





	The Dancer With No Feet

I always thought, perhaps from reading so obsessively as a child, that rain would come down as a ‘drip drop’. That is, as you are for sure aware, how rain is so often described in novels and narratives and poems. The strangest thing is that I have never heard rain in this way; no, rain is a thunderous applause mixed with the gentle thrum of a computer. It is loud, sudden and brutal when it finally meets with the Earth.  
I cannot help but ponder this as I walk through the rain, my umbrella held firmly in my right hand as my left one clutches onto the string of my bag, as though it will fly away in the non-existent wind or be harmed by the distant thunder. 

Thunder is a curious thing too, is it not? They say it claps – but no, I think that the rain is the one which claps. The rain is like the audience, cheering and clapping and colliding. When it thunders, and when it is not just the rumble of an airplane in the sky, I hear it as the great thrum of a drum. Like there is an expert drummer above the clouds, playing a slow but moving performance for an audience of water droplets. 

Walking in the rain has always been one of my favourite things to do, perhaps because I was always scolded for doing so as a child. Of course, I understand why I was scolded so often for walking around in barely a shirt and shorts, jumping in every puddle without shoes on and slipping on every surface. I was always cold, wet and sick afterwards, but it was worth it, I would say. Despite the horrors of a stuffed nose or the dreariness of depleted energy, I would say that playing in the rain had its benefits. 

For one, I was far more likely to have a good time that day. Which, for myself as a child, was always such a rare thing. Despite my collection of knick-knacks and play-things, I always found myself bored if I was not outside running amok. 

For two, I was able to actually experience the weather while it occurred. They say that some places, especially in the Eastern states, gather more rain than Western Australia could even imagine. I believe them. I visited Tasmania once when I was a young child, near Hobart I think, and it rained gloriously for days on end. There was even snow atop some of the tallest mountains. I could only ever dream of this now, of course, since I have sworn my life to remaining stationary.  
I do wonder, quite a fair bit, whether I have made the correct choice by staying put in the South Western part of the state. They say the climate is forcing us to move further and further southward, the heat of Darwin chasing us as though we are its prey. I believe them. I have seen – and I have felt – the consequences of climate change for so long. The warmer days, the brilliant summers that seem to stretch out over five months, the winters which contain more severe weather than ever before.

I suppose that is why people question the climatologist’s accusations so frequently, though. The winters. They say that the climate is warming – so why are the winters so cold and so long? How can it be that the Earth is simultaneously getting warmer and cooler? That must be a mistake in the data we have collected, in the evidence we have produced.

Those are the people I choose not to believe. Those that question every little piece of evidence that is pulled from the ground and sky, those that think higher of the structure of the economy than the death of the planet. 

I come back to my senses slowly, fading from the anger that resides in my head for ignorance, and instead focus on the path before me. My chair has continued while I have been lost in thought, it seems, as I am closer than before to my destination. The water has built up, too, into mighty puddles which tempt my immaturity, and the clouds continue to clap at the performer’s music. I cannot help smiling at the thought of myself repeating my childhood now, in the middle of a street with no name and houses without homes. 

Slowly, I drop the umbrella from my hands and let it fall to the ground. It does not float like I had expected it to; it collapses suddenly as the rain pulls it to the cement. It takes a moment for me to feel it again, but once I do, I feel like the clouds are cheering for me more than they are cheering for the performance. Like I am a dancer on stage with the drummer.

I close my eyes and tilt my head towards the sky, stretching my arms to the side and feeling every drop as it hits my skin. I always thought, perhaps from reading so obsessively as a child, that the rain would sound meek as it dripped slowly from the sky. That is, as it seems to be, the way rain is described so frequently in text. But this does not feel soft and meek, this feels like a thunderous applause, for the dancer with no feet.


End file.
